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WHEELING – From being a member of the class that integrated African-Americans into Wheeling Country Day School to covering major news stories around the globe, Del Walters proves that those from humble beginnings can promote progress.
Walters, a 1975 graduate of Wheeling High School who furthered his education at both Bethany College and the former Wheeling College, is a renowned broadcast journalist, author and filmmaker. Today, he works in New York City as a news anchor for the Al Jazeera America network.
Not bad for a kid who grew up on Vine Street in East Wheeling hoping to have a chance to make an impact on the world.
“If you don’t know where you’re from, you don’t know where you’re going,” Walters said Saturday, as he and his family returned to the Friendly City this weekend to celebrate the life of his father, the late Theodore “Ted” Walters.
“I would be hard-pressed to say I would be where I am today without Wheeling Country Day School,” Walters said. “To those who engineered the social experiment of integrating that school, I say ‘Thank you.'”
Walters said during his time at the private school, which he attended prior to entering Wheeling High School, the instructors pushed him to the limit to get him to perform at his best.
After working for multiple media organizations in West Virginia, North Carolina, Missouri and Washington, D.C. – and establishing his own production company – Walters received an offer to join the Al Jazeera America network upon its 2013 launch. Translated from Arabic, “Al Jazeera” means “peninsula.”
“We are now in about 50 million homes across the U.S.,” he said. “We believe in a very good, hard-nosed, serious newscast. We don’t just give you the news you want to see. We give you the news you need to see.”
Walters said the royal family of Qatar owns Al Jazeera. He said the network strives to provide strong news coverage without the bias that some may believe is there.
“They believe that if we do good journalism, it will be a benefit to the world,” he said.
As for his work, Walters said the network will send him to cover big stories, no matter where they are.
“I’ll be covering Pope Francis Sept. 24,” he said of the address the Pope is scheduled to deliver to Congress that day.